The Heart of It All... Innovation

This week a colleague shared an editorial piece entitled, "Riding the Innovation Wave" that was in Monday's Boston Globe. Written by the presidents of Harvard and MIT, the piece made the passionate plea that the U.S. must continue to invest in education and research if we are to truly emerge from this severe recession and lead the global economy. Citing other challenging times from our history (e.g., after the Civil War and World War II) the authors claim that "America restored its economic momentum with great bursts of technological innovation, paired with ambitious national commitments to education."

The editorial states that there must be a greater commitment to basic and applied scientific research, as in recent years the U.S. has fallen behind the research and development expansion efforts of such nations as China, India, Korea, Russia, and Brazil. Concomitantly, there must be an intense focus on K-16 education. After all, where is the next generation of researchers and developers going to get its inspiration?

The piece warns against having "a national deficit of inspiration," in that we must not give up the push to improve our schools despite the current budget shortfalls. Indeed, this is true now more than ever. We must press on with curriculum and practices that cultivate 21st century skills- problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, technological literacy, and perseverance to name just a few- as they are the building blocks of innovation.

As the price of gasoline quickly creeps back to $4.00 a gallon or you are watching the latest news report on the Japanese nuclear power plant crisis, consider the following simple facts about renewable energy in America:

• Despite that it has the potential to be the "Saudi Arabia of wind," wind turbines on farms throughout the Great Plains of the U.S. produce less than 3% of our nation's electricity. The reasons for this are plenty- social and political- as right now wind energy is not always cost-effective. However, a pragmatic problem also exists: creating and building high capacity transmission lines to carry the produced electricity from the rural wind farms to urban areas.
• Arizona is the sunniest state in the United States. In fact, if 2% of the total square mileage of the state was covered with photovoltaic cells, it could power all of our nation's cities. However, in recent years the solar industry has developed much faster in Europe and Japan, so much so that the leading manufacturers of solar cells are outside of the U.S.
• Automobiles powered by hydrogen fuel cells show great promise, as this fuel source would emit nothing but water vapor, hence being very beneficial to further climate change. Again, political and economic problems are shaping the advancement of this technology, but scientists are still trying to solve the practical problem of the required amount of compressed hydrogen and precious metals needed to power a car.

I chose to underscore some issues with green, renewable energy, but I could have also posed problems from the fields of medicine, engineering, or information technology. I brought up these facts to illustrate the larger point: innovation is the key. We need to give our students the STEM content and skills so they can think outside of the box and have the opportunities to innovate.

Students in our classrooms will solve these problems in the not too distant future. Our very existence and livelihood is depending on them!